Life
So I did get back surgery, almost ten weeks ago, at the end of August. It was a successful operation, but the recovery process has been arduously slow, and intitally very painful.
During the first few weeks of the recovery period, doctor's order's were "frequent short walks", and rest. Luckily, my grandmother's house has the best backyard in the world for walking around in circles in.
The first week home from the hospital I noticed a change taking place in the majestic old live oak tree that presides over the space at the far side of my circuit. The foliage appeared to be thinning, and there was a faint popping and clicking I began to notice when standing under it, barely audible over the normal rustle of the wind in the boughs, but if I held real still (keeping those core muscles engaged...)
It began in the higher branches, but after a few weeks, the lower branches began to loose their leaves as well and when I inspected I discovered that there were thousands of these creepy little beasties having a feeding frenzy.
By the end of September, the tree looked like this:
I had been spending a lot of time on the internet, and the Syrian crisis, Fukushima, the generally fevered and apacolyptic tone of current events, coupled with my extremely isolated and trying personal circumstances had me feeling as if the world really was coming to an end, and the gluttonous little catepillars were just a totemic reflection of homo sapiens behaivoir vis a vis our poor mother planet Earth.
We are proper fucked, was all I could think, and it serves us right, and I'll never get better, and I'll never be able to leave the house again, and nobody cares, and we'll all be dead soon enough, I kept thinking, over and over.
Then I saw this
Then, it seemed, the air just exploded with these silver little oak fairies, we had a stretch of that gorgeous california indian summer, crisp mornings followed by warm bright days with liquid sunlight drenching everything in a mystical haze; their plate licked clean, the lascivous little beasts, once they put on their wings, turned their attention to each other, and got down to the business at hand, shimmering, and doing the dance.
And then I discovered that Live Oak Trees (which are endemic to this coastline, and are evergreen) do, on occaision, flower. Something I had never seen, or at least never noticed, before.
And now the nights are cool and and the days gray. It is the dying season. The work is through, the race run.
But boy the tree looks happy now :)
And I'm grateful to be walking in circles in the back yard. Even starting to stand in the studio and paint a bit. It hurts a little less each day. And each day is an opportunity to bear witness, here, where and who I am. God bless the internet.
Everything is ok. We'll all be dead soon enough. Carry on.
Love, J
During the first few weeks of the recovery period, doctor's order's were "frequent short walks", and rest. Luckily, my grandmother's house has the best backyard in the world for walking around in circles in.
The first week home from the hospital I noticed a change taking place in the majestic old live oak tree that presides over the space at the far side of my circuit. The foliage appeared to be thinning, and there was a faint popping and clicking I began to notice when standing under it, barely audible over the normal rustle of the wind in the boughs, but if I held real still (keeping those core muscles engaged...)
It began in the higher branches, but after a few weeks, the lower branches began to loose their leaves as well and when I inspected I discovered that there were thousands of these creepy little beasties having a feeding frenzy.
By the end of September, the tree looked like this:
I had been spending a lot of time on the internet, and the Syrian crisis, Fukushima, the generally fevered and apacolyptic tone of current events, coupled with my extremely isolated and trying personal circumstances had me feeling as if the world really was coming to an end, and the gluttonous little catepillars were just a totemic reflection of homo sapiens behaivoir vis a vis our poor mother planet Earth.
We are proper fucked, was all I could think, and it serves us right, and I'll never get better, and I'll never be able to leave the house again, and nobody cares, and we'll all be dead soon enough, I kept thinking, over and over.
Then I saw this
And then I discovered that Live Oak Trees (which are endemic to this coastline, and are evergreen) do, on occaision, flower. Something I had never seen, or at least never noticed, before.
And now the nights are cool and and the days gray. It is the dying season. The work is through, the race run.
But boy the tree looks happy now :)
And I'm grateful to be walking in circles in the back yard. Even starting to stand in the studio and paint a bit. It hurts a little less each day. And each day is an opportunity to bear witness, here, where and who I am. God bless the internet.
Everything is ok. We'll all be dead soon enough. Carry on.
Love, J
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